Nightmare Prom

Proms are a pretty big deal in a girl’s life. But the memories of my, one and only, prom experience are far from sweet.  I was just a junior in high school, but at my school the juniors did all the grunt work of planning the senior prom for the year.  Every detail, from what the theme would be to what type of china would be used, was up to a small committee of juniors.

For the majority of my junior year, I sold candy bars and held car washes and attended committee meetings to plan and pay for every detail of that year’s prom. But the first step was picking a theme.  It was a student in my homeroom class that suggested we use Joe Jackson’s Steppin’ Out as the theme song for that year’s prom. It was a classy theme, pictures of guys in tuxes and top hats and girls in their most glamorous evening gowns immediately came to mind.

After an entire year of being a slave to planning the prom and looking forward to seeing all that hard work become a beautiful reality, just one tiny detail threatened my perfect evening.  Just weeks before the prom, my date and I had a falling out, and I was left with the prospect of having no one to accompany me to the year’s biggest social event.   I asked everyone I knew if they had a date, but all the desirable dates were already spoken for.  Then suddenly, a friend of mine said he had the perfect guy for me.  Beggars can’t be choosers, so I agreed.

My evening began with my date picking us up not in a limo but his mother’s station wagon.  His tux looked like something left over from the 70’s, with a ruffled purple shirt and an all white tux.  Not cool for a 1980s prom. I tried to overlook these details and tried to make the best of it, but the evening just seemed to get worse and worse by the minute.  At dinner, he got Ranch dressing all over his lips and never once used his napkin.  When he asked me to dance, his dance moves were also from the 70s.

His idea of great post-prom entertainment was going to the movie theater to see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and to laugh like a hyena each time the ewoks made a sound. To top it all off, he was so nervous, that at one point he actually ran into a speed limit sign at the side of the road and proceeded to curse a blue streak .

To this day, as soon as I hear the first xylophone-like notes of Steppin Out, I cringe and turn the station.